Sugarlawn

Here’s a classic run-around-and-grab-stuff treasure hunt in a mansion, although Spivey elegantly bypasses any questions of the ethics of stealing someone’s stuff by framing the entire game as reality television, complete with a host providing color commentary on Louisianan architecture.

The game has a lot of lock and key puzzles, some that require the use of a good-old pen and paper, as well as an interesting mechanic of treasures being worth twice as much if placed in the room they belong. I think this does a pretty good job of adding an additional layer of gameplay – it’s easy to drop off the loot in the room as you run around completing other puzzles.

This frame story also includes the additional caveat of a thirty minute timer, which gives the whole game a sort of Hollywood Hijinxs meets Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder feel. This I was less jazzed about. Building a parser game around replayability is tricky: too short and it isn’t worth replaying, too long and replaying seems arduous. Sugarlawn hits right at the “almost too long” mark. Once I finished the game for the first time I immediately started again, but after realizing I hadn’t noted treasure locations the first time it felt more like a chore.

If you haven’t played Sugarlawn yet, I highly recommend it, with this advice – take detailed notes the first time.